Ship owners worried after low pay for Asian crew ruled unlawful
Shipping companies have threatened to fly under another country’s flag after a verdict from the Netherlands Institute for Human Rights that said an Indonesian and Filipino worker should not have been paid less than European staff.
The verdict, published last week, said that two Dutch shipping companies were guilty of unlawful discrimination because they were paying “significantly less” to the Asian workers.
The Filipino man was employed on a Dutch tanker owned by Maritime Performance B.V, and the Indonesian man on a vessel owned by VSO Zwerver I B.V. off the coast of Angola. They did “comparable work” to European colleagues but earned at least 50% less – possibly more if overtime were included.
The shipowners said they had used collective labour agreements based on the “country of residence principle” in order to remain competitive – an argument that did not hold water, according to the non-binding verdict. The Netherlands Institute for Human Rights said that the men were victims of discrimination based on nationality. In the Filipino man’s case, it said there was also racial discrimination…